work

I regained control this afternoon, and am trying to assess the situation.

Here’s how it happened.

This is the last image I made on site, before I got jacked out of the system:

It’s not obvious, if you are not an expert, but my character here is making a selfie in the company of two, hugely grown ragweed plants.

I mentioned the unusually strong pollen situation in this country. I also mentioned in my previous entries, that I’m going to attend a special meeting of sorts.

The meeting, or as we call it, the #Convergence, was located at a #MissionSite, much larger in scale than what my character has authority over, and it’s different – it’s a 15 hectare orchard and farm, regularly set up, so it is looking conventional, but it is run according to the #Principles, of course, otherwise we wouldn’t have been there.

I do have all the memories from before I faded out, and the day started pretty okay. The toxic shock arrived when the Sun came out under the blanket of clouds and the big clumps of ragweed went into full dispersion mode.

The symptoms appeared, got stronger and stronger, and I blacked out around dawn.

Two weeks passed.

For me, subjectively, it was just a moment, a few seconds of dark emptiness, with echoes of this reality – like a dream state. It felt like a short time, but it’s entirely possible that everything my character experienced was indeed filtered to me realtime.

I do have access to the accumulated memories of my character, from this time period – a little blurry, but they are there, and they are barely indistinguishable from those that I actually played through.

Strange. I hope it never happens again, and I do think it must be some sort of a glitch – spending only a week in the game, and going offline for two weeks of game time seems unintended – but only the #Developers could answer in detail.

And that, they never do.

Unfortunately, since he was in a sort of downtime mode – He was going through recovery, barely doing even #Work at all. Getting no instructions from me, he doesn’t seem to have accomplished much in this time period, in terms of #Mission objectives – which makes sense, if you think about it.

You play the game to win it – to achieve the goals of your character. If he could make significant progress during this, let’s say, #Downtime, why would it be engaging for you, as a #Player?

The #Convergence was still fruitful, even if I was barely conscious during its latter half, I will write more about that in my next #MissionLog.

Strangely enough, either the Internet is out, or #Electricity as a whole, these days.

Battling allergy, I stay in mostly, and inside all I can do is #Work related, mostly virtual – apart from creating plans for refurbishing the interior here. An update is desperately needed.

The house, at the center of the #MissionSite, or in other words, my home, is an old, single story “peasants house”, its walls made of clay, which means air conditioning is not required, and once it is fully heated up, it’s easy to maintain a pleasant temperature inside it, even in the harshest winter conditions.

#MissionSite is located along the border of two Eastern European countries, so the dominant #Climate here is called Continental, slowly drifting towards the Mediterranean. Precipitation is expected to become more sporadic, with the occasional torrential rains. Temperatures are likely to move towards the extremes with the averages going slightly upwards in the next decades.

But talking about the interior, well, it is burdened by the memory of the socialist past of this country, with quite low quality and straight up ugly pieces of furniture. Upgrading the interior living quarters is not exactly #Mission-related, but certainly would make progressing through the #Quests easier, working and living in an environment that identifies better with us. Design process is already underway.

So, going back to the #Mission, important steps have been made towards participating in a meeting, which takes place at the weekend. This will be an important #Networking event, where I will have the opportunity to strengthen ties with other individuals on a similar #Mission, working on their own respective #MissionSites all over the country, but mostly in the outskirts of the #City, just as I do.

I assumed control not much after midday, which is signified by the ring of an analogue church bell at this location.

The sound of the bell is clearly audible in the premises of the whole settlement. 2000 is also signaled by the same sound, as I knew from background data, and experienced it myself as well, later in the day.

It is the first day of calendar autumn, which meant the first working day after a two week long sabbatical for my character – a sort of back on track moment, a logical point in time for my #Ascent.

The day progressed as per the predetermined #Timetable, with time slots alloted to #Work.

#Work is an activity that is considered an ongoing side-assignment that generates income for my character. This income is used for self-sustain, and to provide material goods used for creating a physical environment that is more suitable for the execution of the #Mission.

#Work is usually done on the computer, and largely related to digital content creation in a #Freelancing arrangement.

More on this later, as the current compromise in allotted time for strictly #Mission related activities and others are based on a more elaborate concept that requires a depth of analysis currently incompatible with the #MissionLog format itself.

A small calibration anomaly drove my character to skip #Garden and move on straight to #Recon.

Here’s an image from the evening walk:

Later, in the pub, a group of strangers asked if I could get them a stripper.

They turned out to be members of a bachelor party group from the #City, lodging in probably the most established guest house of the village.

Acquiring the services of a qualified stripper in this location is outside the realm of possibilities, to the best of my knowledge – but I directed them to the very owner of the establishment they inhabit currently.

If there is a creative solution, Viktor will come up with it.

Sadly though, at that hour – approximately 2032 – on an average Friday evening, he might already be too close to the FUBAR state to come up with anything resembling creative.

This concerns me:

This is a heap of used metal, currently residing in the front #Garden for reasons unknown.